If Smiting is schizophrenic, what is strength?

I decided to open this thread again for those who want to keep talking about what is the difference between strength and tactics...

Why is strength better than tactics?
I am normally a hammer warrior, currently using axe and strength based shield just for a change of routine, but I must say that a hammer is what will help a warrior do what they are supposed to do: go out there and club something to death, quickly, and painfully. I'll explain why in a little while.

Back to our strength question....
For example, I have been testing and well... Swords are stupidly pathetic, with my current armor setup no sword warrior will do more than 5 dmg at a time, maybe a little more with skills. If 15 lvl 20 minotaurs cannot kill me, trust me, sword/axe warriors can't kill me either. Axes are a little stronger, I must say decent. Hammers? No wonder they are my favorite weapon. No matter what my armor configuration is a good hammer warrior will always club me pretty good. Maybe not kill me, but it will give trouble.

Strength gives 1% armor penetration for each point, when you use attack skills. Pretty useless you would say? Now consider this:
W/MO build
Judge's Insight, your attacks become holy dmg and have 20% armor penetration
Penetrating Blow (axe) strikes for +x more dmg and has 20% armor penetration
Strength at 10, thus, 10% penetration
add it up, it equals a total of 50% armor penetration. Now axes aren't great dmg, but... How do you like it when someone uses an attack on you that ignores 50% of your current armor? Painful huh?
And you don't even want to know what it does to a caster.
Strength isn't a warrior's main attribute for nothing.

Now, to the hammer thing... I don't understand what is the thing with swords and axes. I'm using axe, but mainly so i can equip a shield, since I do a lot of pve. I am invincible enough without shield, but shield has made me even stronger.(Good casters are a problem, but against melee... I can't die) Hammer though, is the weapon i use in pvp.

My hammer build:
Hammer mastery 16
Max dmg hammer (19-35) with 15% bonus (while enchanted) and 20% (customized), total 35% bonus. Strength, 10

When I use hammer for pvp, I have one and only one goal: kill. I don't care if I die, if my target dies first, I'm happy.
For all those sword/axe warriors out there, consider using hammer A little slower but god does it pay off.
Once I get 7 adrenaline, you are dead, no matter what your class is. A monk with a 65 health reversal of fortune takes at least 40 dmg OVER the reversal. So without the reversal, they would take a clean 100-120 dmg. Sick? Oh yeah
Devastating hammer, gives weakness, after that it's a matter of using 3 or 4 more hammer skills. Once you're knocked down once you're pretty much not getting up except to die. I use shocking hammer for monks and warriors, so I bypass armors a bit. Plus my strength gives me some penetration....
Normal hammer hits can hit a warrior from 40-70 dmg.
Devastating hammer hits a warrior for like 40-60 dmg, knocks them down and gives weakness.. Casters will take anywhere from 80-110 dmg. Then, Use Mighty Blow, which adds 32 dmg.. That would be around 70-110 to any warrior, 100-130 to any caster, use heavy blow which knocks down anyone suffering from weakness and adds 32 dmg, same numbers as before, and finally, last but not least, Irresistible Blow, (+32 dmg more) followed by Wild Blow which most of the time isn't even necessary to use.

Assuming an average of 100 dmg on those 5 attacks, that's 500dmg total, enough to take down almost any target. Trust me... Average dmg is not 100 at all.. Lovely when a sword/axe warrior can't hit me for over 15 dmg while i answer back with blows for 40 at least.
On top of all... Gotta love warriors blocking and evading.. awww... Too bad hammer has many skills that can't be blocked or evaded and deal extra dmg when opponent tries to? beautiful

So.. Strength any good? Hell yeah. Hammer any good? Double hell yeah.
Using sword/axe, I couldn't kill one of those resurrection priests for the life of me. Using hammer, once i get 7 adrenaline, which i get really fast, in like 4-5 hits cuz of certain skills, that priest gets knocked down, and dies within 5-10 seconds, no exceptions.. They manage to use heal area? Too bad I outdmg their heal area anyway...

So yes, strength is an awesome warrior attribute, and hammer is an awesome weapon.
Any comments on this? Feel free to contact me in game, Dalgon Leinhart is the name. I can show you both my survival build (fought 3 warriors and 1 ranger by myself, killed them all except one warrior, we had to play rock paper scissors to decide winner) or my killing build, not a lot of survival, but with a monk on my back I am pretty unstoppable. Killed 2 warriors and an elementalist by myself once before they could take half my health away. Poor sword warriors hitting for 0 dmg...

Comments?

Swords attack faster and can interrupt better than a hammer. However, I like hammer better for PvP since they have better skills that focus on one target giving weakness or knocking them down. I use backbreaker to knock them down for a longer period of time so i can set up other skills. Normal knockdowns aren't long enough for me to chain another hammer attack in. Anyways, I aggre with you =)

I'd use backbreaker too it's a great skill.. but one problem... 10 adrenaline **ouch** I use stonefist gauntlets so my normal knockdown is increased from 1 second to 2 or 3 depending on opponent ( I have found out some types of opponent recover faster than others) which gives me more than enough to throw a skill in, then knockdown again... After which knockdown opponent pretty much dies

And swords are faster? Very true. They can interrupt a lot... But well, if you think about it... Can a sword interrupt a hammer falling down on you? If you're being blocked or evaded irresistible blow was created for that, besides, there isn't gonna be a lot of interruptable skills to use when all your intent is on clubbing someone to death.. A little impossible to stop a hammer like i said.. Lol
Also, swords may be faster, but again... Useless when they hit for 10 dmg tops? 5? Using hammer the most i ever got from a sword was 15 dmg... I replied with 65 >.> lol
Using shield swords are pretty much useless, even arrows do 0 dmg most of the time with the ocassional 1-5 critical.
Hammer is by far the best weapon in the game.. It all depends on what you want

I like the armor a shield provides, and the reliability a sword provides. I don't do any pvp, though.

You guys sold me on the hammer! ! ! I have 2 very nice gold ones in my um . . storage file, aka my mule. So when I get back to my cpu I'm going to play around with my hammers that I have found throughout the game. Thanks for the info, it sounds like to much fun for me to pass up, the whole being able to kill another warrior in 5 hits and not 15. Bye bye swords, hello Shocking Hammer of Fortitude.

If a hammer does 19-35 damage, and an axe does 6-28 damage, I don't see how they're average damage is going to be 15 when yours is 40.

Although I do agree with you on hammer being the best for a warrior for PvP, but because of the knockdown mainly, not because of 3x the damage as sword or axe as you suggest.

I decided to expand greatly on hammer and how they worked for me, and share what build I use personally. I have two builds, survival, which of course is what it says, not a lot of dmg or fast killing, but pretty hard to kill me. This build is awesome for pve.
And well, just plain old dmg build, which I mostly use for pvp. Ill put skill sets for each build, and how they work. Survival build first

Attirbute point allocation:
Healing: 9
Strength: 10 (9 + minor rune)
Hammer Mastery: 16 (12 from attribute points, superior rune 3, dwarven helm 1, total 16)
Tactics: 4 (3, 1 from minor rune)
Skill Set:
1: Berserker Stance (atk 33% faster gain 20% more adrenaline when u hit in combat)
2: Hammer bash (Target is knocked down)
3: Belly Smash (If it hits knocked down target, the resulting dust cloud will blind nearby foes for 10 seconds) less time with less hammer mastery
4: Bonetti's Defense (75% to block attacks and arrows, gain 5 energy for each melee atk blocked. Lasts 7 seconds with 4 tactics)
5: Healing Hands (gain 17 health everytime you're hit in melee) less with less healing prayers
6: Healing Breeze (regen of 7)
7: Balthazar's Spirit (gain a little adrenaline and 1 energy everytime you take dmg)
8: Mending (Regen of 3)
I won't explain how skills work, if you find the description of the skills you should be able to figure out how they work together to make you last some good time against a good amount of opponents.

Dmg build for pvp
1: Berserker Stance
2: Devastating Hammer (elite skill, knocks down target and gives weakness for 21 seconds)
3: Mighty Blow (you hit for +32 more dmg)
4: Heavy Blow ( Lose all adrenaline.If you hit target suffering from weakness, you strike for +32 dmg and your target is knocked down)
5: Irresistible Blow (you strike for +32 dmg. If it's blocked, your target is knocked down, and it cannot be evaded)
6:Wild Blow ( if it hits your next hammer attack will be a critical hit. It cannot be blocked or evaded and will end any stance being used by opponent)
7: Restore Life (or purge conditions)
8: Mending

once you get 7 adrenaline, you use Devastating hammer, then right after use mighty blow, then heavy blow. Mighty Blow has to go first, since Heavy blow will make you lose all your adrenaline. So.. Devastating hammer >> Mighty Blow(at end of which target should be done getting up.. to go right back down :P) Heavy Blow, and finally Irresistible blow. Usually many targets will die after irresistible, if not, wild blow.

Just thought I'd give some insight on how to use hammer. Most people that start with hammer leave it because they cant figure out how to work with it.

Any question feel free to contact me in game, name is Dalgon Leinhart
I am using axe and shield now though for pve, the extra armor from shield is awesome.the extra 16 armor and using watch yourself makes me literally invincible Minotaurs in Elona mission (lvl 20, use hammer) hit for like 0-5 dmg :P Of course most of it has to do with my armor configuration too
Sometimes I use axe build in pvp just to get people angry
Anyway, feel free to contact me anytime

Sprint.

Peace,
-CxE

I see your point perfectly, but look at these numbers.

Axe dmg is 6-28... Just look at that gap there. 6-28. Big hole between lowest and highest number hmm? Looking at it from a numeric point of view, you could hit for 6, or for 28 since it's all random. I am not sure how the dmg works in the game, not completely sure, but let's say each point in your axe mastery is 1 point more in your dmg output.(Although los of things influence in dmg, I'm just trying to put an example why axe and sword dmg is so low) Since you have the chance of hitting for anywhere between 6-28, if you have let's say 9 axe mastery, and you just happen to hit for 6 in that random 6-28, add 6 to your 9 mastery, which is 15 dmg. And so on and so on. It doesn't work this way, but the number 6-28 is just way too random. Hammer on the other hand, is 19-35. Assuming you hit for the lowest of your weapon, 19, add let's say 9 hammer mastery, that's 28 dmg. Thus, it's just the randomness of the rating in the axe that makes it hit for way less dmg, even though max dmg is only 7 points away from hammer. I have 16 hammer mastery. Assumint I hit for the lowest of the weapon, 19, add 16 to that, and it comes to around 35. Of course like I said, many other things influence dmg, my dmg potential is way bigger, and what makes a huge difference is what armor the opponent is using.
Also, I hit other for at least 40, mostly. I have found warriors that take 35, even 30. And the 15 dmg I am talking about, is based on myself. I have an armor configuration like I haven't found yet, since it took me lots and lots of testing. I have been called a couple times a "god" in pvp simply because 3 warriors with an air ele took 15 minutes to kill me, and warriors and rangers only don't even stand a chance. It has been a lot of testing and trying and more testing for me to find and discover what I know, personally with my axe i hit others for way more than they hit me. With my newes addition to my armor though axe/sword dmg dropped to no more than 10, 10 being a critical hit.
Any doubts, contact me in game and I shall go to Elona with you and solo the mission there if you so wish Only problem is even if I can't die in the mission I run out of time in the last crystal. Or I'll just pull 10 or 11 minotaurs to me and kill them all one by one as an example. Again, you're very welcome to ask any questions you like
And swords do crappy dmg simply because their max is 22... Pathetic

Dalgon, just think of the added dmg you could do if you had a great monk on your back and you were a W/E with Aftershock added to all those good hammer skills

Aftershock is decent, but please remember, my warrior is my pve character, and I love to just go out there and kill stuff, farm by myself, etc etc. If I was W/E, I would be awesome in pvp, but in pve I wouldn't be able to do much by myself

Assuming gladiators armors are used, on normal attacks:

Sword warrior with 16 sword mastery is doing (15-22)*.5*1.15 ==> 9-13 damage to a hammer warrior (not counting critical)

Hammer warrior with 16 master is doing (19-35)*.38*1.15 ==> 8-15 damage to a sword warrior using 16armor shield (not counting critical).

Now if you take the skills into account. Sword has higher damage, while hammer has knock down (which can be counter easily as a warrior).

Please explain your logics.

I understand it is your PvE character, but if you have a free spot on you could make a PvP only W/E that would just tear it up.

Hydrak, he is doing tons of damage because 30-50% of his damage is going straight thru and ignoring the armor, aka armor penetration

Sword can do the same thing by points into strength/judge's insight/sundering mod... I don't get his point.

Btw, I've seen a good sword warrior going against a good hammer warrior before 1v1 in 4v4 arena, international district. Even with half hp, a sword still beat hammer with full life. A good hammer warrior is better than sword or axe against caster because of all the knockdowns. But without a doubt, sword vs hammer is like rock vs egg.

He is just trying to point out the flaws in some of the Warrior FotM builds by trying to enlighten people into the benefits of going from tactics into strength and/or sword/axe to hammer. Either choice is fine but if you can produce great damage that you can live with it doesn't really matter. Go with what you deem better, it doesn't really matter in the long run until you get served by the choice you didn't pick.

I would agree with him if he said strength is better than tactic for pvp. But to say hammer does 4 times the damage of sword or axe is ridiculous. He was just pulling numbers out of thin air or maybe he was fighting people who used armors with 50AL or less.

Does strength only affect attack skills, or does it go to skill aided attacks as well?

To clarify, I use Sever Artery, Final Thrust, and Beserker Stance in by warrior build. Do I penetrate armor while Beserking? How about while aided by my own Order of the Vampire?

Hammers are ok... but once you get hit with soothing images, what do you do? Or you're hitting someone with sympathic visage on? No adrenaline = no massive hammer attacks.

where can i get stonefist gauntlets?

As a PvP wa/mo, having a slot for either hex or condition remover wouldn't hurt. Taking that extra burden off your monks, leaving them free to do their jobs of healing and protection.

Simple, just call for one of your monks to pull it, since they all should be packing some type of hex removal. Also, if you're attacking someone with sympathetic visage on them, and you don't have enchantment removal... just switch targets.

well a few replies... well.. stonefist gauntlets are found in droknar's forge.. and hydrak, answers to your messages

how can i deal such huge dmg? your numbers are completely wrong as you put them, like i said, the numbers i put was just an example, since dmg is influenced by many things, but consider this.

warrior armor is against physical attacks, and against physical, warriors are simply uber. but not even one piece of warrior armor gives protection against elemental, hence why air eles can hurt warriors so much with their lightning... doesn that ring a bell?
I use shocking hammer.. in another words my dmg to warriors isn't physical anymore, I literally bypass armor and most of the dmg goes right through.
10/10 sundering with sword or whatever? I repeat, the dmg numbers i put here are based on my character, and it took me quite some time finding my current armor configuration, which most ppl in this game haven't figured out yet, and i am not about to give it out. Even hammer warriors never go over 20 dmg against me unless they use a skill
but like i said, personal secret. I can't be babbling around about my armor cuz then everyone will be like me and killing another warrior will become nearly impossible.
also, you rely too much on numbers... have you forgotten one of the principles of guild wars? "play in a world, where skill, not lvl decides"
even a sword warrior can do good dmg with right skill/attribute allocation, but again, it would take quite some time. I didn't always deal the huge dmg I deal now, took lots of testing and trying and thinking (to figure out monster's weakness etc etc, working on figuring out each class' weakness), and i found my potential not long ago after endless testing...
i must admit i don't like swords at all, they have nice skills but in pvp they are nothing but useless.. axes, im using axe at the moment for change of routine, and i must say they are decent
but ill round my prowess up to one simple question: Can you hit a monster for 465 dmg and kill it in one blow? it was a low lvl monster(16), that i normally hit for 300-318 dmg mostly, and i use judge's insight... but a sword or axe will never match that number
also, you might want to look into hammer... sword and axe dmg is not very good... and you forget that hammer put weakness on you? there is always a counter for everything, and if i get weakness on myself it won't last very long at all because i am prepared against conditions at least.. like i said, in pvp i am built to kill and a little puny condition won't get in my way
can't remember the names but if you hear about someone that killed ppl in pvp in 3-5 blows.... *points at self* there is another warrior like me who i haven't had the honor of meeting that did the same in hoh, can't wait to meet him one day though we'd make an awesome team
also, i have had 6 peopl eleave axes and swords, and become literally my pupils.. the voluntarily said "teach us the ways of the hammer" as stupid as it may sound, i guess me killing them with a hammer made them consider their current weapon. 2 of those people now are as strong as me, and when we do pvp together well.... painful
but again, we can just meet in-game, team arena, and i can just show you how it all works... anyone that has a doubt or question just tell me your in-game name and we could arrange something.. maybe ill find myself some more students? lol.. kidding
i posted my two different builds before, read them, see the descriptions for the builds, and you should be able to figure it out
or you are always welcome to join me in pvp so i can show you
but again don't forget this thread is about strength vs tactics

That must be why you emphasized 3/4 of your post on how powerful your hammer is.

You fail to realize that warriors wielding axes and swords can have shields which is an extra 16 armor. No armor combination can beat one full droknar set with a 16 armor shield. A shield can also have mods that reduce damage by 2, add to health, etc. I highly doubt you have an armor combination that makes the average sword/axe damage 3 times weaker than a hammer attack.

A weapon that does lighting damage does not bypass all armor, does it?

i know shields are very good, but well... the rule is simple as this.. if you want survival, you must sacrifice dmg potential
if you want dmg, you must sacrifice survival
sword/axe, no matter how it's set up, in the end it's a survival build, even if your whole skill bar is dmg based
like i said, my armor configuration is not to be revealed, at least not now, but using hammer i take very little dmg from swords and axes, thanks to that same configuration
i must recognize and i gladly do so, that the 16 armor im getting from shield is awesome
i can't solo a resurrection priest anymor though, no way to out dmg the heal area, unless i interrupt it
thus, for pvp, back to hammer
and lightning dmg does not bypass all armor, but it does ignore some of it...
ever wondered why that chain lightning hit you for 100+ dmg?
lightning and metal.. not compatible

like i said, i am in game now.. write me if you need to discuss anything

Whatever you put on hammer such as lightning, fire, or cold damage, you can do the same with sword. Bottom line, on normal attack sword and hammer are about the same because you can use a shield with sword. When using skill, sword has superior damage.

Edit: btw, if you've ever go against a spirit group, they don't need to use greater confragration against you to turn your damage to cold and absorb it with mantra.

Now your build it messed up if you use shocking hilt and judge's insight at the same time. This is the big waste of a hilt upgrade.

Impress me by making a direct comparison between sword and hammer damage. In my comparison, like I said before, whatever you upgrade with hammer, you can do the same with sword.

*Throws Dirt* "Ahhahahahahha swing all you want!"

I must agree, hammer warriors are very affective in pvp, but there are so many ways to counter warriors.....

comparison is simple:
sword max dmg: 22
axe max dmg: 28
hammer max dmg: 35
like i said, this thread will not get anywhere without some actual showing contact me and we'll do some pvping together

Sure hammer warrior are very good against casters in pvp. But I somehow lose respect for any warrior carrying mending with them into pvp. More respect is lost when a warrior is using weapon with shocking hilt and judge's insight at the same time.

you are very right moofoo.. but again.. nothing in this game is meant to be perfect everything has a counter :P
soothing images without monk in my team? ouch
a few hexes? hmm... conjure phantom + disease + poison and whatnot? ouch
although i can take care of my conditions, if you can put them back right away ull have me pretty screwed

just don't let me get 7 adrenaline and you're set
lol

plz note i don't use hilts since i don't use swords, and with hammer i don't need judge's, and wouldn't use it anyway
uses too much energy.. judge's insight is more like a pve thing since i don't run out of energy in pve.. and is till don't use it much.. better skills to put there
the mending? it's very nice to counter a poison or conjure phantom long enough to kill whatever put it on you
logging in game now... message if you like.. will check back later

Sure we can do that, but tell all of us your intention of using weapon with shocking hilt and judge's insight at the same time?

Also like i said before whatever damage convertion and armor penetration hammer can have, so can sword. Tell me what's wrong with my calculation?

If you are saying that the damage calculation on this forum is wrong, then let's clear this up first. No hand-wavering explanation.

like i already said, i don't use sundering with hammer at all, and don't use judge's... uses too much energy
the mentioning of judge's in beginning was just to show how strength could add to the armor penetration and how effective it could be combined with other stuff
and again, i have tried all weapons and no matter what skills, and i have used them all, i always deal at least 2x dmg more with hammer than with anything else
feel free to write me in game, signing off for now

I don't doubt that you can do almost 2 times the damage with hammer on a normal attack (comparing to sword) against a 60AL target. But it's a different matter going up against a target with over 100AL.

Just show me a direct comparison on normal attack damage: sword/shield warrior vs hammer warrior. If you use lightning dmg hammer in the calculation, then do the same with sword.

Changing it to an element just causes you to avoid the +10-20 bonus to AL that the warrior armor provides. Against a few different types of casters and rangers, its worse than your basic physical attacks. That is why people typically carry more than one type of weapon/mod combination. I have to point out though that if you dont have any real mana issues and you arent getting targeted or interfered with by anything at all, that judge's insight changes the damage to holy, which is better than elemental, hence why it seems as good as it is, in addition to the armor penetration.

Just like you have seen really big hammer attacks ive seen final thrusts for close to 200 damage, with galrath and pure strikes only ~+45-60 less. Granted its a bit more conditional, but the damage is there. The part i dont like about some of the better warrior attack skills is the draining all adrenalin part, creating an artifical exhaustion effect interupting the chain slightly. Its the same way with many of the stances ending when any skill is used, cutting down their effectiveness. I think part of the reason why many people have an aversion to warriors the adrenalin stipulation. Sure it makes them somewhat unique in operation over time, but requires constant sucessful melee contact. Unfortunatly, there are many ways to avoid that situation in every class. Combine that with facing off against a caster of a similar build premis as a warrior, usually nets the warrior at a loss due to the advantage of the energy being able to be used now, instead of ~7-10 seconds from now. Ever see a small group of warriors lose to a knockdown ele? I have, in addition to any job style that mimics something that a warrior is supposed to accomplish, while possessing a better form of defense against the warrior and better, if not equal, defense a warrior possesses to all other damage sources. The difference is that most of the jobs that mimic something a warrior can do, many of them can perform it sooner and from a distance.

I still find it kinda disapointing that the strength only affects the attack skills as well. Allowing for the strenght to be applied to every attack would have made them a little more distinct than a caster playing at being a warrior and only spending points in weapon abilities or tactics to accomplish what they want to do and only miss out on the 1% damage. Granted, they dont get the option for a decent duration sprint or whatever, but could choose to use charge instead, or a skill out of their main profession that either lasts longer or goes faster while usually performing other things at the same time aside from the run speed boost.

Hammer is definitely the best for anti-caster, which means WORLDS in PvP, where casters are king.

Axe is probably second best due to raw damage. With hammer warrior support, axe would probably do well in 8v8.

In my experience, though, sword isn't totally useless...at least, not in the 4v4 arenas (my guild hasn't gotten around to Tombs/GvG lately, so we try to at least get some practice/faction in by doing 4v4 arena). People usually don't bring more than 1 warrior in 4v4, and if it's one sword guy (usually me) versus one hammer guy, I'm gonna win by virtue of one single skill: Hamstring.

He may be able to flatten my monks and casters with a single blow, but as long as I keep him crippled, he can't chase down my casters, and we're free to pin down his buddies one by one and spike 'em.

Unfortunately, snaring seems to be the only appreciable strength of swords in PvP...and in anything bigger than 4v4, I for one think you'd be better off with a hammer and/or an axe warrior in your team build, because being able to snare targets so they can't rush your casters or run away from damage loses its edge when you're faced with 8 different people to snare, at least one of whom probably has condition removal.

I just play sword cause I suck at hammer. I dunno, I just can't seem to grasp the "flow" of a good hammer offense without blowing all my energy and adrenaline. I dunno what I'm messing up.

The person who started this thread does have a few informative suggestion. But he also made some claims that are completely wrong. This is why I'm trying to get him clearing up these claims. No luck so far, only hand-wavering explanation...